St. Louis Post-Dispatch Bill McClellan column

St. Louis Post-Dispatch (MO)

June 09--"You who are on the road,

must have a code, that you can live by"

-- "Teach Your Children" by Graham Nash

Several years ago, when Ray Flynn was dying in the federal hospital lock-up in Springfield, Mo., a retired St. Louis police detective visited. The detective had worked on the bomb and arson squad when a series of car-bombings roared through the local underworld. Flynn had been in the middle of it. At the time of his hospitalization, he was serving a 55-year sentence for racketeering, conspiracy and interstate transportation of dynamite.

"I got a couple questions, Ray," the detective said. "A couple things I never understood."

"I don't talk to cops," said Flynn.

"I'm not a cop anymore," the detective said. "Besides, everybody's dead. Nobody else cares about any of this."

"I don't talk to cops," said Flynn, who lived, and died, by a certain code. Think of it as a beacon guiding a person through a foggy life. Truth is, the foggier your life is, the more you need a code.

Besides criminals, who has the foggiest job?

My guess would be college basketball coaches and politicians. Lots of money floating around, lots of shady characters you have to at least pretend to like. You cannot be morally rigid. I often quote the late Sen. Everett Dirksen of Illinois. "I am a man of fixed and unbending principles, the first of which is to remain flexible at all times."

The code for college basketball coaches and politicians is the same as it was for Flynn. You play the game, you don't come in on other players. You don't hear many basketball coaches calling their colleagues out for recruiting violations. What do the kids say? I'm rubber, you're glue.

Which is why I would suggest that whatever career former Gov. Eric Greitens chooses next, it ought not be college basketball coach.

How does one explain a rising star in Republican politics coming undone in the bright red state of Missouri? For what? Well, there was an affair and allegations that he took a photo of his lover without her consent and threatened to release it everywhere if she were to expose him. By the way, that was in the beginning of the affair. Also, there were allegations that he broke some campaign finance laws.

If we were to throw out all the lawmakers who have cheated on their spouses or their campaign finances, we might have a hard time getting a quorum.

These are not normally mortal wounds, especially for a governor whose party controls both houses of the Legislature. You apologize for the first and pay a fine for the second.

But Greitens campaigned aggressively as an outsider who was going to clean up the corruption in Jefferson City. Because Jefferson City was, and is, controlled by Republicans, he came into office with little good will from his own tribe. As governor, he did the very things he had promised to clean up. Fine. Most people expected that. His sin was, he continued to criticize his fellow pols.

Had he stopped acting so pure, his fellow Republicans would have forgiven him. Or at least pretended to. People in politics have to make accommodations. Do you think Josh Hawley, a protégé of former U.S. Sen. Jack Danforth, really admires President Donald Trump?

I don't, but I don't hold it against him that he pretends to.

I understand accommodations. I made my living writing for newspapers, and while that's not as foggy as mobster, basketball coach or politician, it was not always, in moral terms, the definition of clear and sunny.

Before becoming a columnist, I was the night police reporter for this newspaper. One night, Chief Gene Camp visited the press room, and asked if I wanted to have lunch the next day. We went to O.T. Hodge's Chili Parlor. When we were done eating, the chief took the bill to the counter. He handed it to the kid at the cash register. "That'll be six bucks," the kid said. The chief flashed his badge. The kid got flustered. "That will be six bucks, officer," the kid said.

Fortunately, before the situation could get out of hand, the manager came over and assured the chief that the lunch was on the house. Of course it was.

In a more ethical universe, a high-ranking police officer would not have dared to demand a free lunch in front of a reporter, and a reporter would not have permitted the chief to buy him lunch, even if the chief, were to actually, you know, buy it.

But go along, get along. That was my code. Too bad for Greitens that he did not have one.

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